HON 324 - Modern Political Argument

Prerequisite, acceptance to the University Honors Program. An upper division seminar that combines the study of history, politics and rhetoric and examines key moments in the development of modern political argument. Close reading of writers who combined great ideas and artistic prose in the service of a political cause, beginning with examination of 17th and 18th century England and Ireland and the two giants of political argument: Jonathan Swift and Edmund Burke; continuing with early liberals Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine and the call for a communist revolution from Karl Marx; and ending with modern reform liberalism and the libertarian ideas of F.A. Hayek and Barry Goldwater, the intellectual and rhetorical foundation for today’s Tea Party radicals. (Offered spring semester.) 3 credits